1960 - 1961





Science Fantasy, Volume 13, Number 39, February 1960
Contains the short story, The Sound-Sweep, which was reprinted in the collection, The Four-Dimensional Nightmare.

Ted Carnell's story blurb: "Eighteen months ago in the April issue of New Worlds, Jim Ballard had a delightful short story entitled 'Track 12' which opened up the possibilities of sonics as a plot theme. Here, in this long novelette, he has extended his ideas into a high level and most unusual story."




New Worlds, Volume 31, Number 92, March 1960
Contains the short story, Zone Of Terror, which was reprinted in the collections, The Voices Of Time and Chronopolis.

Ted Carnell's story blurb: "Try this new Ballard theme -- optical illusion of a different form of Time travel? The problem would be for an outside observer to decide which was the genuine article and which the illusion."




New Worlds, Volume 32, Number 95, June 1960
Contains the short story, Chronopolis, which was reprinted in the collections, Billenium, The Four-Dimensional Nightmare and Chronopolis.

Ted Carnell's story blurb: "In the big cities of the world Time is already at a premium and as the population increases it will become (and already is becoming) a problem to fit everything and everybody into a workable schedule. Jim Ballard takes our presentday congestion problems to a very logical conclusion."




New Worlds US, Volume 1, Number 4, June 1960
Contains the novelette, The Waiting Grounds, which was reprinted in the collections, The Voices of Time and The Day Of Forever.




New Worlds US, Volume 1, Number 5, July 1960
Contains the novelette, Manhole 69, which was reprinted in the collections, The Voices of Time, The Disaster Area (retitled The Concentration City) and Chronopolis.




Science Fantasy, Volume 15, Number 43, October 1960
Contains the short story, The Last World Of Mr Goddard, which was reprinted in the collections, The Terminal Beach (US paperback) and The Day Of Forever.

Ted Carnell's story blurb: "If you remember the taut suspensefulness of Merritt's 'Burn, Witch, Burn' (originally published in 1932 but still read as a classic of its kind and constantly being reprinted) you will find much in common with it in this short Ballard story of a manipulator of human destinies."




New Worlds, Volume 99, Number 33, October 1960
Contains the short story, The Voices Of Time, which was reprinted in the collections, The Voices of Time, and The Four-Dimensional Nightmare.

Ted Carnell's story blurb: "Jim Ballard has produced a long list of memorable stories during the past four years -- two of them included in Dell's S-F: Year's Best. With this latest story we feel that he is comparable in stature to Brian Aldiss who is undoubtedly the leading British writer of the day."




Meanwhile, JGB was already thinking ahead. He was strongly influenced by Pop Art in the 1950s, and did a number of collages near the end of the decade. Here he stands in front of his Project For A New Novel collage in 1960. According to JGB: "(These are) a series of four facing-page spreads that were specimen pages I put together in the late 50s... sample pages of a new kind of novel, entirely consisting of magazine-style headlines and layouts, with a deliberately meaningless text, the idea being that the imaginative content could be carried by the headlines and overall design, so making obsolete the need for a traditional text except for virtually decorative purposes... curiously enough, far from being meaningless, the science news stories somehow become fictionalized by the headings around them." Yeah... real curious... To see these spreads, as well as more of JGB's experimental fiction, click here.




Penguin Science Fiction, Edited by Brian Aldiss, London, 1961
Contains the short story, Track 12.




Science Fantasy, Volume 15, Number 43, February 1961
Contains the short story, Studio 5, The Stars which was reprinted in the collections, Billenium, The Four-Dimensional Nightmare and Vermilion Sands.

Ted Carnell's story blurb: "Jim Ballard's first delightful fantasy, 'Prima Belladonna' in No. 20 had a somewhat exotic setting known as Vermilion Sands, a coastal paradise where the 'long-hairs' idled their time away. He returns to this setting where modern poets produce their wares with the aid of an IBM computer."




New Worlds, Volume 36, Number 106, May 1961
Contains the short story, Deep End which was reprinted in the collections, The Voices Of Time, The Terminal Beach (UK edition) and Chronopolis.

Ted Carnell's story blurb: "In this story Mr. Ballard takes the theme that Man has tampered with the elements and, in consequence, Earth is a dying world. But not quite dead -- life still survives although humanity is emigrating to the planets."




New Worlds, Volume 36, Number 108, July 1961
Contains the short story, The Overloaded Man which was reprinted in the collections, The Voices Of Time, The Overloaded Man and The Four-Dimensional Nightmare (revised edition).

Ted Carnell's story blurb: "Ever tried mentally 'switching off' surrounding objects? It is relatively quite simple providing you concentrate upon one dominant item to look at. But what happens to the 'switched off' objects? Are they still there or do they slip away into some mysterious limbo of Time?"




Science Fantasy, Volume 16, Number 48, August 1961
Contains the short story, Mr. F Is Mr. F which was reprinted in the collection, The Disaster Area.

Ted Carnell's story blurb: "This is probably the strangest story Mr. Ballard has yet written although the basic plot has been used before by other authors. However, none of them, to our knowledge, approached it from this particular angle."






New Worlds, Volume 37, Numbers 110 and 111, September/October 1961
Contains the two-part serial, Storm-Wind. Although this reads like a rough cut to The Wind From Nowhere, there are substantial textual differences -- no American submarines in Italy, for example. And the pulp version includes an epilogue which is missing in the novella.

Ted Carnell's story blurb #110: "With more than twenty short stories to his credit during the past few years -- many of them outstanding -- it was inevitable that Jim Ballard would eventually turn his thoughts to a novel. This two-part serial is a shortened and altered version of a book-length novel to be published in the near future."
Ted Carnell's story blurb #111: "With civilisation disintegrating under the increasing force of wind everyone has been forced underground -- with one exception, the man who is building the pyramid."




Here's the second JGB bio to be run in New Worlds. This edition was published in October, 1961, with the conclusion of Storm-Wind. Yes, it's the same pix as the one used in 1956, but this time the copy concerns the apocalyptic form, which, at this time, JGB was just beginning to explore. He would "save" his lead characters in the novella, The Wind From Nowhere, but from then on everything changed. In fact, it's hard to believe the same guy who wrote The Wind From Nowhere could pump out The Drowned World the following year. Welcome to your niche, JG...




New Worlds, Volume 36, Number 112, November 1961
Contains the short story, Billenium which was reprinted in the collections, Billenium, The Terminal Beach and Chronopolis.

Ted Carnell's story blurb: "This latest short story of Jim Ballard's fits into the category of city-growth created in his earlier 'Manhole 69,' 'Build-Up' and 'Escapement.' If the world is overcrowded now, try and visualise it as Ballard sees it here."




New Worlds, Volume 38, Number 113, December 1961
Contains the short story, The Gentle Assassin which was reprinted in the collections, The Terminal Beach and Chronopolis.

Ted Carnell's story blurb: "Mr. Ballard's versatility as a writer has been especially pronounced during recent months by the wide variety of his plots. This month the scene swings to the actions of a man who attempted to alter the course of History."